The reference to the weird parable (if that's what it is) of the unclean spirit did not occur to me but it's a plausible connection. I wonder if there was a custom of cleaning the house on All Saints Day, as a sort of welcome or invitation to them. I notice this is not the eve, i.e. Halloween.
Sally's choice of the Allegory painting to open today's posting keeps drawing my eye. There's something fitting about a painting of the vanity of earthly things being attributed to someone whose name is lost. As near as I can tell, the painting — now apparently in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Rome — was named in a 19th-century list as by Gerard van Honthorst, then by a follower of van Honthorst, then by the improbable Trophime Bigot, but also sometimes by an unknown "Candlelight Master." Given the lighting, I really like that attribution.
The reference to the weird parable (if that's what it is) of the unclean spirit did not occur to me but it's a plausible connection. I wonder if there was a custom of cleaning the house on All Saints Day, as a sort of welcome or invitation to them. I notice this is not the eve, i.e. Halloween.
And btw my compliments to you for linking to the KJV and not some contemporary version.
If we cannot look ourselves in the eye, with a sense of peace or joy, who can we look in the eye?
Sally's choice of the Allegory painting to open today's posting keeps drawing my eye. There's something fitting about a painting of the vanity of earthly things being attributed to someone whose name is lost. As near as I can tell, the painting — now apparently in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Rome — was named in a 19th-century list as by Gerard van Honthorst, then by a follower of van Honthorst, then by the improbable Trophime Bigot, but also sometimes by an unknown "Candlelight Master." Given the lighting, I really like that attribution.
He or she was definitely familiar with Caravaggio.